Titanium for every day of the year

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R ibble’s Endurance follows the design lead of the latest road machines with its dropped stays and sporty lines, but is built from top-grade, seamless-butted titanium, rather than carbon.

It hasn’t forgotten about the British weather, though, with discreet mudguard fittings and specially in-house designed full-coverage ’guards an option with its clever online bike builder.

The Endurance Ti Disc is available in three models: the ‘Pro’ with Shimano Ultegra Di2 and carbon wheels at £4,299; a 105 ‘Sport’ version at £2,299 with alloy wheels; and this £3,299 ‘Enthusiast’ model that comes with full mechanical Ultegra with hydraulic disc brakes and Level’s 35 wheels (plus £25 for the mudguard upgrade).

At over three grand it’s the most expensive bike I had on test, but you get a well-finished titanium frame that closely follows Ribble’s road-line design, with dropped seatstays and geometry that’s on the sporty side of sportive.

The finish is outstanding and under the skin it’s double-butted tubing. It’s rare to find such a high-grade set of pipes when most of its rivals at this price use standard unbutted tubes.

The chassis uses flat-mounts for the disc brakes and the minimal rear dropouts look premium. Ribble has tidily integrated mudguard mounts onto the slender, kinked rear seatstays and retained a proper bridge to provide a secure mount for the ’guards.

The brake hose is internally routed through the straight-legged fork, in keeping with the full internal routing on the frame that results in a clean-looking bike, even with ’guards.

The ride position is sporty but not slammed – something I approve of – with the large frame measuring up with a 562mm stack and 396mm reach.

It comes up a little longer than the average endurance-shaped bike and a little lower, too. Personally, I think Ribble has got the position right and it feels totally dialled when you combine the geometry with superlative contact points.

The in-house brand Level handlebar has a slight backsweep, so when you put your hands up on the tops to take a short breather, the reach is shortened a little. It makes things more relaxed and I found it a comfortable handhold for long, steady climbs.

The bar is wrapped in Level-branded PU tape with a great all-weather texture. At the back, the slender (27.2mm) carbon seatpost is topped with a Fizik Aliante saddle. For me, it’s one of the best long-distance saddle shapes ever.

The Endurance rolls on UK-built Level 35 wheels with a 35mm-deep aero profile rim that’s held together with aero-bladed spokes laced onto straight-pull hubs (straight pull is when the spokes route straight through the hub flange, rather than in a traditional ‘J’ bend, and it’s claimed to be lighter, stronger and less prone to long-term fatigue).

The wheels rolled smoothly while the rims mean the quality 28mm Continental Grand Prix GT tyres blow up closer to 30mm.

I’ve said plenty about Shimano’s latest Ultegra since it launched in 2017. Suffice to say, it’s the best pound-for-pound mechanical road groupset you can buy.

You could go fancier with Dura-Ace or Campagnolo Record, but for accurate smooth shifting, awesome braking and reliability, I certainly wouldn’t spend more.

The smoothness of the tyres, the compliance of the carbon post along with the great contact points combine with a frameset that’s comfortable yet lively enough in the handling stakes to satisfy the most combative rider. All of these factors add up to a bike that simply shines on the road.

The way in which the Endurance glides over poor surfaces, allowing you to keep your pace up, is on a par with some of the best titanium road bikes I’ve ridden.

The only real moot point is the full-length Ribble ’guards. I like the safety fixings but both front and rear lack flaps for the final few inches.

That didn’t cause a problem for following riders but, for me, it meant my cycling shoes came back much more muck-spattered than from the other mudguard-equipped bikes I had on test.

The Ribble is much more than a winter road bike. It looks stunning and is every inch a premium machine. The ride is superb and the (relative) value for money impresses.

If you want a bike that’s built to last and rideable come rain or shine, then I’d fully recommend the Endurance.

Mudguard-equipped bikes have been a staple of road cycling for decades, with winter club rides likely to insist on covered tyres because there’s little worse than sitting in a chaingang with a constant spray of muck being delivered into your face.

Like all chaingangs, we covered the fiscal range by selecting four bikes for every budget to keep you riding outdoors through the dampest days and put them to the test on our local roads in the conditions they were designed for.

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).

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